


Eleven Alone

by snowzone5



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Blogging, Blogs, El swears a lot to start., F/M, Mileven, Modern AU, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24135547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowzone5/pseuds/snowzone5
Summary: El sees a cute guy on the bus. She starts a blog.Mike sees a pretty girl on the bus. He writes a blog entry.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair
Comments: 97
Kudos: 26





	1. The Bus Ride Entry

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, yeah. Starting another one. I've said it before. I'll say it again. i need to jump around depending on my mood.
> 
> Otherwise it would be more than weeks between updates from me.

_ If you stumbled onto this blog thinking it was a  _ Mommy blog,  _ it’s ok to leave now. I won’t be offended. It’s so  _ NOT  _ a mommy blog. I’m a single girl in a big city trying to find love. I decided to blog just how fucking hard this is. _

_ If you just rolled your eyes, you are probably a guy, so hmm, how do I say this politely. Fuck off. This blog isn’t for you. Ok. There’s one guy out there I wish would read this but, I don’t think that’s going to happen, _

_ Ok, about me: _

_ I swear too much. I hate doing it, but I got so used to my dad’s swearing that well, kids learn from their parents. Everything that’s right, and everything that’s wrong. So if you  _ were _ looking for a mommy blog, don’t fucking swear in front of your kids. _

_ The name of this blog is Eleven Alone. My nick online is Eleven. Those who know me know why. Yes. I’m alone. And lonely. I’ll admit that. And if you think that’s the only excuse you need for a quick fuck, then you are a mouthbreather. You’re also using too much air. Stop it. That’s right. Fuck off and die. _

_ I am 25. But I’m not a stupid fucking millenial. I can’t believe they don’t die of their own stupidity. Stupid  _ should _ be a slow painful acting disease but unfortunately it isn’t. _

_ Ok, guys reading this are probably wondering, is she hot? Yup, you’re a typical guy. Again, fuck off. The guy I’m looking for will  _ know _ he’s for me. Yes, he will  _ know _ it. _

_ I’m not really tall, I have a good figure… I guess. I  _ do _ get looks. My boobs aren’t big, but as I’ve heard the mouthbreather’s say “more than mouthful is wasted.”  _

_ I got news for you buddy. Seconds. _

_ Having said that. I have really short hair. Shorter than a pixie style, but a bit longer than freshly buzzed. Turns most guys off right away. They think I’m a lesbian. Nothing wrong with that, I’m not exactly sure I’d say no, after all, someone who loves you, loves you for who you are. But, no. I’m not a lesbian. Sorry gals. Another universe maybe. _

_ I’m a forensic analyst for computer systems. Originally just for critical servers that had crashed, but obviously because hackers are now shitting where they play, it’s for compromised systems. _

_ And if you got here by some hacking search and thought you’d show that bitch something. Let me remind you. I’m not a stupid fucking millenial. Not only do I now know who you are. But I’ve infected  _ your _ system. And signed you up for a  _ lot  _ of porn. Hackers like to think they are so smart. They aren’t. At least half of them are only script kiddies. Couldn’t clear an 8086 register (even if they knew what the fuck that was) if their life depended on it. _

_ A computer forensic analysis can find out why a computer has problems, and generally who did it. Hackers don’t get this, but whatever makes my job easier. I can’t even tell you who I work for. Is it military, an alphabet company… hmm, I wonder.  _

_ Anyway. No. This is not Wordpress software on the front end, friends don’t let friends use  _ anything _ written in PHP. _

_ No, it’s not a Ruby on Rails app, or Django, so stop looking for Ruby/Python module exploits. It’s not node.js so no Ghost exploits.  _

_ I already gave you a hint. But unless you are an OSI model expert (ie. that means you didn’t just read the wiki page) you will at least know which attack vector to use. _

_I’m bitter. When I’m bitter I tend to swear too much._ _One thing my dad always told me. I can swear like a trucker if I want. Free world and all that. But most guys want their girlfriends to be, not so potty mouthed._

_ I promise bus guy. If we ever find each other I’ll stop swearing. Forever. Ok, unless, of course it’s for sex. :) _

_ Did she just say bus guy? Sigh, yeah she did. Two things happened to me this morning. I moved to a big city, and I went purse and watch shopping. _

_ Yes, I’m still a girl. But I’m a geek. Geeks need their watches. _

_ I was lucky. I was one of the first people on the bus and I made my way to the back. The back has its advantages and disadvantages. If you get the very back and one of the window seats, you can ride in peace for the most part. But, getting off early on the trip is a pain in the ass if walking through the people standing in the aisle. The bus I was taking was going downtown, where most people were going to be getting off. So I'd be getting off with the rest. For the most part I read a book on the bus. People are less likely to bother you, and if for some reason you lose the book… well it’s cheaper than losing an iPod or other mp3 player. I don’t text on the bus. I’m a computer forensic analyst. Remember? _

_ Ok, let’s get to the point of this first entry. So, I’m at the back, one of the first people on, and this guy is right behind me. He  _ must _ have seen my ass walking up the bus stairs. I wear pretty tight jeans, no camel toe for fuck’s sake, that’s just not cool. I don’t want to see a moose knuckle on a guy either. Sorry Robert Plant. You just make me want to puke. So, sorry guys. Size of your dick means nothing to me. It’s what you do with it. Even then, it’s not even about that. It’s whether you like me or not… or love me. _

_ I will absolutely NOT fuck a guy who doesn't’ love me. And trust me. I will know. Yes. I’m a virgin. Oh, did you just blow your load? You fuckin’ mouthbreather. _

_ Anyway, the back seats of the bus are sideways to the windows, not perpendicular. This guy sat directly across from me. _

_ I like to think I’m not really a shallow girl. I mean I like abs and maybe a large package if I happen to spot it. But seriously. I just want a guy who loves me for who I am. Is that so wrong? _

_ So this is the shallow part. He had shoulder length, jet black, corkscrew hair. My dad brought me up on 70’s music. I don’t listen to the shit they play nowadays. So his hair was kind of like a cross between Rory Gallagher (his younger  _ Taste _ days)  _ _ And Marc Bolan from T.REX ( _ The Slider _ album if you must know). _

_ He had the features I like. How did  _ Paul Williams describe it? Well, replace the “we” with “I” and “us” with “me”... anyway all the appropriate pronoun substitutions in the song “Somebody Super Like You.”

He was pale, but had the cutest freckles. 

I’m going to say it.

He made me wet. So wet that I... 

Fuck, that’s shallow, I had to look down myself to see if I wasn’t seeping through my jeans.

But. He looked lonely. I can say that because I know that look. I see it every time I look in the mirror.

I can honestly say. I don’t know what it was about him. 

I can honestly say this too. I was in love. He was the reason I started this blog. In a desperate attempt and hope that maybe he’d read this and want to find me.

If you are that guy… well

Eleven loves you.

XXXXX

  
  
  


_ In one form or another I guess I’ve been blogging since about 1987. Of course they weren’t called blogs then. I think the word “weblog” was first used in ‘97, but didn’t really become mainstream and called a “blog” until ‘99. I’m probably more opinionated than most of my friends. I can already hear Dustin saying “really? We didn’t notice.” _

_ I usually blog tech stuff. I’m a nerd, so that’s what you get from nerds. Sorry girls, I know you were lining up to kiss the Paladin, but, unless you are smart. I’m not interested. _

_ I DID say I was a nerd. So a pretty, smart girl well, I’ll marry you now. We’ll figure out the awkward stuff later. _

_ About me: _

_ I go by the online nick of Paladin, you are most likely to find me under that nick. My real name is Mike Wheeler. I come from a town where nothing ever happens. Well, the internet happened, so I guess that’s something. _

_ I’m skinny, tallish. Pale and freckles, I think my nose is too big, but I finally have a chin. I’m not sure my looks are what girls want now. Well, I think I am sure. I have no girlfriend and no prospects. Clearly, girls aren’t tripping over my doorstep. _

_ It’s either that or the fact that I’m still living in my mom’s basement. Yeah, you read that right. After my dad mysteriously disappeared, I moved back home to help my mom. _

_ I have a legitimate job. Companies pay me good money to optimize their code. Believe me, “professional” programmers out there don’t have the spirit of the title. They have the paperwork and that’s it. _

_ Ok, to clear a register, you CAN move 0’s into the lower and higher bits, or you can just use xor and do something like: xor AX,AX _

_ I know what you are saying. “Isn’t that 8086 assembly?” _

_ Well, yes it is. But you would be absolutely flabbergasted (did I just type that?!) to know that companies, BIG companies still use 90’s technology and compilers. And code. They are very reluctant to move into the ‘20’s (that’s 2020 not 1920. Although that’s not far off. _

_ Anyway, they pay me big bucks to fix their shit code. _

_ I don’t really consider myself a hacker, but I understand the concept of what needs to be done. _

_ Sorry mom. You know I don’t’ swear. _

_ I called this entry “The Bus Ride.” for a reason. _

_ Went to the big city today, to pitch an idea to a big company. Yeah, basically on why their code is crap. _

_ I noticed with immense relief that the bus was almost empty. I followed a girl up the stairs. _

_ Ok. I’m gonna be shallow here for a second. I’d like to think I’m not that shallow, but she had the nicest bum I’ve ever seen on a girl. Not that I stare a lot, but her butt was less than a foot from my face. I almost couldn’t help it. :) _

_ I usually look down while climbing stair after a girl, just in case. But… I’m ashamed to say I couldn’t help it. _

_ I just realized that any girl reading this called me a mouthbreather. I’m really not like that. Promise. If you knew me you'd know. _

_ Anyway, I went to the back of the bus. Strategic reasons would bore you to tears, but I ended up sitting directly across from her. _

_ OMG. ZOMG. _

I.  _ Have. Never. Seen. A. Girl. That. Pretty _

_ If I had a voice, after looking at her eyes. I would have asked her to marry me. Figure out all the bullshit afterwards. Not only did she look pretty, She was reading a book, so she was smart. I’m sorry all you non-readers, you are no better off if you don’t read, than if you can’t read at all. _

_ I looked at the book she was reading. It was a hardcover. Who carries a hardcover on a bus? She must have had a big purse or was going to shop for one. _

_ I was able to read the title. “Fluid And Creative Technologies”. Ok that was really weird. _

_ I knew that book. I was in a waiting room at one of the Amazon training centers in Toronto, Canada. They had that on the coffee table in the room. It was by Douglas R. Hofstadter. I was so impressed by the concepts I actually ordered it myself. _

_ She was pretty. That was obvious. But she was friggin’ smart. NO girl has that for a summer read. _

_ She looked to be about my age. _

_ I will tell you the truth. Friends Don’t Like (I know they are reading this :) But I did not think girls that pretty would be that smart. If you are reading this, pretty girl. I misjudged you by your nice bum. I apologize. I’m in Hawkins. Kinda hard to find. It’s not even on the map. If you are smart, like I’m pretty sure you are. Well, if nothing else, I’d buy you a coffee.  _

_ Even it was just to see your pretty eyes again. Especicially to see your pretty eyes again. _

_ I wouldn’t try anything. That’s not me. _

_ Sigh. Ok. Go ahead everyone. Flame me in the comments.  _  
  
  



	2. The Day After

_ I guess I should know better. I’m a lovesick girl who thought that maybe her plea would help my “knight in shining armour”, my Paladin, to find me against all odds. Nada. _

_ To be fair. I’ve made it very hard to send me an email. I figured the guy I’m looking for would be smart enough to find me. Also, to be fair. He’s had less than 24 hours, so I should give myself a break there. _

_ On the plus side, all the mouthbreather comments I expected were there, so it’s pretty much just like reading slashdot, Digg (back in the day) or Reddit (the new toilet of the internet). _

_ Another comment suggested I go to church. I almost pissed myself laughing. Sorry “promise keepers” (you pussy whipped pieces of shit). You deserve whoever you end up with. _

_ One interesting comment said I should go to a library. Hang around the math section or the science-fiction section. But not the computer section, I could write those books. That made feel pretty good. The first two were not the worst suggestions I’ve heard. _

_ I may turn off commenting. I’ll give it a few days. _

_ I also had some hackers try to crack the blog. Seriously dudes? 192/172/10/169 addresses are for idiots. I was able to find out who you were.  _

_ And I’m guessing you know it by now if you’re computer is smoking. _

_ Fuckin’ idiots. _

_ One of my favourite things is to talk to a guy who thinks he knows more about computers than I do. I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m just saying that *I* have not run into him. Not even fucking close. _

_ Again. Apologies to my future soulmate. I will *never* swear in front of you. I try to keep that online :) _

_ Would you look at that? Obviously I have no markdown parsing in my code. Time to fix that… hold on… _ **_There_ ** we go. Bold as advertised.

_ Some of the comments asked me why I just don’t go to a bar and pick up a guy. To answer you  _ **_mouthbreather_ ** _ (yup, markdown now works), I’m not going to humblebrag, but I can probably pick up any guy if I was that desperate. _

_ To tell you the truth, I don’t want to pick up a guy I can find in a bar. As far as I’m concerned  _ **_NO_ ** _ guy in a bar will dance with you unless he wants to get laid. When I see guys dancing in a bar, that’s the first thing I think of. I’ve gone to a few with my friend Max (she’s Maxine, but don’t fucking’ call her that.) We went there for drinks, not to get laid. She has great red hair, she could pick up a guy in seconds… but she’s a little like me. Wants that one true love. I guess that’s why we're such good friends. She doesn’t have a blog though. Sorry guys. She doesn’t do that “nerd shit” as she likes to put it. _

_ A few seconds after I published my blog last night, I started to write a program to crawl the internet. Note to hackers, the web is  _ **_not_ ** _ the internet. That’s what makes you fuckin’ idiots. _

_ These “hackers” don’t even know what a bang path email address is. (hint. I still have one, and it still works. Then again, I have my own DNS server, and can write Perl code in my sleep) _

_ I don’t know what I was expecting to find. That kind search really requires lazy fuzzy matches. _

_ How do you search for “my soulmate who sat across from on the bus? BTW, he should be gorgeous and smart.” _

_ I can’t stop thinking about that guy. If there is an internet god, throw me a bone ok? _

_ I wonder what his name was, what does he do? Ah, fuck. I never even thought to check for a ring. _

_ I will  _ **_not_ ** _ be a homewrecker. Shit. Shit. Shit. _

_ Ok. Had to stop typing. I was feeling a little sorry for myself.  _

_ I guess I’m a lot lonlier than I thought. I would give almost anything to be able to curl up next to my soulmate at night, kiss, and just fall asleep in his arms. _

_ Sigh.  _

_ So the day after my move to the big city is a big fuckin’ zero.  _

_ Sorry soulmate, I’m just bitter. _

_ Eleven loves you. _

_ XXXXX _

_ Way too long between blogs for me. It’s not that there isn’t enough tech news to blog about. But I can’t stop thinking about that girl I saw on the bus. _

_ I know what you are thinking. “Dude it’s just some chick on a bus. There are a ton of beautiful girls on the web.” _

_ Well, asshat. That’s where you are wrong. It’s not just some girl. Aside from the fact that she was physically appealing, she was smart. She had a look of innocence and sadness about her. I just wanted to hug her, comfort her… She was so pretty I… (big sigh here)... she had very pretty eyes… her hair was cute, very very short… she had a dimple when she smiled. Did I mention she was really pretty? _

_ I had to stop typing. I got too emotional. If you are out there pretty girl. I’m almost positive I love you, I want to get to know you. I want to be with you.. _

_ I checked my stats for the blog. Dropped a few subscriptions (mostly guys, guess they didn’t like my last sappy blog entry). I more than made up for it by the amount of female commentors, and subscribers. _

_ As you can see everyone of them said that they were  _ **_not_ ** _ the girl on the bus, but that they were smart and not that bad looking. They’d be willing to meet me. _

_ I don’t even know what to say to that without sounding like I was cheating on her. You know. The girl on the bus. _

_I know I went on about how pretty this girl was, but really. Looks are minor to me. I like smart. I_ ** _think_** _girls like that too, and I’ve heard they like a sense of humour, but none of them ever told me. I’ve read it on the internet. LOL. Yeah, the final bastion of truth. The Internet._

_ Hmm, I wonder if I post on some of the city websites if that’s worth a try? _

_ I think I may be lovelorn, but she doesn’t even know who I am. _

  
  


_ XXXXX _

  
  


[Email from Madmax to Eleven]

El! What the fuck are you doing? Your blog sounds like a lovesick teenager. I’m sorry girl, I didn’t know you were that lonely. I’ll shut up now.

[Reply Email from Eleven to Madmax]

Sorry Max. I’m really taken with the guy I saw. I mean, I actually  _ felt  _ something. Not just physical, you’d want do this guy too if you saw him. You know me Max, this isn’t the way I am. There was something  _ there _ dammit.

[Email from Ranger to Paladin]

Do we need to talk? You went from a blog series walking us through your favourite text editors, to how much you creamed your jeans over that girl.

[Reply Email from Paladin to Ranger]

Lucas, don’t’ be so crude. I’m telling you right now. She is not like any other girl. Not like any I’ve met, and not like any I haven’t met. I’m sure of it.

  
  


XXXXX

  
  
  


_ It was probably 3 or 4 in the morning, but I finished that crawler program. All assembly, bitches :) _

_ I think it ran for a total of eleven seconds (yay!!) before it gave me two hits. _

_ One was ventedspleen.ca ok whoever it is, bigtime nerd, I expected that, and probably like twice my age. The other was frogpaladin.com, the site was down, so the hosting service could have been doing updates. I’ll let it run all night to see what it brings up. _

_ My best friend kind of shit all over me for this blog. I already feel sorry for the boyfriend she gets. I mean she’s beautiful, gorgeous red hair, she’s feisty but she’s loyal. See Max? Maybe this blog can do double duty. Get you a boyfriend too… LOL Joking! _

_ I think I may be obsessing about this guy. I know what my chances are. This city’s population is almost 2 million. _

_ No way I’m going to find him. Not with the little time I have in the city for my current contract. _

_ He may be a Luddite and technology the last thing on his mind. _

_ I’m sorry soulmate. I think I may be the girl you are looking for.  _

_ And I can’t find you. _

_ Not yet, but I’m  _ **_not_ ** _ stupid. I will. _

_ Eleven loves you. _

  
  


_ XXXXX _

_ I think now is the time to say you should not be trolling for girls on the internet. At all. _

_ I wasn’t trolling. I was just describing a situation that happened on the bus. _

_ I’m back in my hometown now where I live, and can work from home. My trip was successful, at least the business part. My heart still stings a bit though. _

_ I now have to face the wrath of one of my best friend. He thinks I wimped out a little bit on my blog. _

_ Ok, maybe a little. I don’t care. _

_ If you are out there pretty girl. _

_ I love you. _


	3. Back To Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If someone want to actually PM me, I know AO3 doesn't have that ability. You can PM me with the same nick on Fanfiction.
> 
> I get the feeling there are some readers that want to do that...

[Email from  _ elevensdad to eleven] _

Are you going to kiss your new boyfriend with that mouth? Sorry, El, I know it’s your online personality. Guys only like girls with trucker’s mouth when they are having sex. Fuck! Did I just type that to my daughter? 

I think you get my point.

Miss you, love dad.

[Reply email from eleven to elevensdad]

Sorry dad :( you are right. I will tone it down, it doesn’t feel right typing that anyway.

BTW, I still love your nick, makes me warm and fuzzy when I get an email from you.

Love, Eleven.

  
  


XXXXX

_ Here I sit thanking the internet that you can’t see my face. Feeling very sheepish this morning. My dad sent me an email, I was ashamed after reading it. _

_ On a lighter note, even though my dad knows his way around the internet (surprised the hell out of me) I won’t let anyone send me email unless it’s GPG encrypted. I walked him through the setup. It’s not hard to find my public key, but I think I scared away a lot of people with my blogs :) _

_ Max had to leave after seeing me settled into my temporary “apartment.”. I quote that, because it’s really a Faraday cage with a lot of high tech equipment installed in a basement somewhere. I know where that “somewhere” is, I’m just not telling the internet. _

_ If you are thinking about trying to hack where I live/work think again. Also think:  _ tarpit/honeypot _ , but with dynamically shifted wide scaling, and a little DIND and DOOD Docker spinups. Using a combination of Openstack, Kubernetes, and of course Ansible. I also have my custom security program Lachesis Muta. If your computer is smoking after trying to hack me… well, that’s probably the reason. Wiki the snake if you want to know why I called it that. _

_ Anyway, I’m a nightowl, so I stay up late and sleep late. I can get away with that while working, because my employers don’t need to keep hourly tabs on me, just that I have deliverables by the end of each week. Apparently my code gets sent to some other coder who heavily optimizes it. They only get chunks of it, so they can’t see the whole program at once. My coding skills are more in the fast category. I get something working and let the hardware take care of speed issues. I’m not offended that they pass it on, they pay for it, they own it. _

_ I only expect to be here for the month before moving back home. I guess I could have worked from home but this was a chance to live in a big city for a bit.  _

_ I didn’t know that my life would change during a bus ride. _

_ I’ve taken that same bus for the entire route every morning. Still no luck in finding my soulmate. It doesn’t even feel like he’s in the same city anymore. It did for the first few days, but then it was gone.  _

_ I’m a very logical person, obviously, and I know how that sounds, but I could literally  _ feel _ his presence. But it’s gone now. I’m starting to think I was just infatuated, and a little hyper at being in a new place with a lot of people. _

_ Soulmate. I’m still searching for you. _

_ Eleven loves you. _

  
  


XXXXX

  
  


_ [Madmax’s blog] _

_ I have a girlfriend who knows her way around technology, she helped set up this blog for me. The only reason I even wanted one was because everyone was doing it.  _

_ I also met someone, thought I would document the relationship. No. I’m not going to tell him about it… at least not until we get together. This blog may be a deal breaker. I don’t know how guys feel about having some of their private life out on the internet. Probably the way most girls feel. _

_ Anyway, his name is Lucas. I mean, I knew that already, we were in a lot of the same classes in Hawkins Middle (it’s a town where nothing ever happens. And I mean NOTHING). He was always hanging out with his nerdy friends (they called themselves The Party, can you believe that?) I never got a chance to meet him officially (nobody ever introduced us) so I never got to know him. But I wanted to. I daydreamed (and yes, nightdreamed, read into that what you will) about him a lot. _

_ But today I officially met him.  _

_ I needed a new keyboard that could stand up to my heavy typing, I kill a lot of keyboards. _

_ So, I walk into the local Radio Shack, and he’s actually the manager there! He just happened to be out on the floor, and asked if he could help. _

_ He smiled at me and pointed his finger, “You are Madmax.” _

_ I scrunched my shoulders a little and I think I gushed a lot. I couldn’t stop smiling at him. _

_ “What do you need Madmax?” He gave me a smile that made my knees all watery… and if I wanted to blog like my friend Eleven, I’d say my nether regions too. But I won’t 'cause she told me she was going to stop her potty mouth. _

_ I let him know I totaled another keyboard. _

_ “Do you touch type?” _

_ I told him I could type. _

_ “But do you  _ touch type _ , there’s a difference.” _

_ This was news to me, but he explained. “Anybody can hunt and peck, or even develop their own style and be pretty quick at it. But formal typing, knowing the home row, that stuff, is the way it used to be taught. And touch typing adds the element of not needing to see the keyboard, or the screen.” _

_ I asked him how you type without looking at those two. _

_ “Touch typing. Seriously, I’m not being condescending.” _

_ So, I guess I can type the standard way, but I need to look at the screen, not so much the keyboard. I asked if it made a difference. He told me the tactile feedback from keyboards wasn’t very good with membrane keyboards, but you could be very fast on them. But a keyboard with a mechanical switch could be fast and give you that feedback you need. But the keyboards were more expensive. _

_ They could be REALLY expensive. I ended up with a K70 LUX Corsair model. I’m typing on that now. Lucas said it was using the Cherry-MX blue switches. Whatever the hell that means. _

_ I like the feel of it, I think it might actually take me awhile to kill this keyboard. _

_ Oh! Forgot the most important part. _

_ He asked me out for coffee after the store closes. _

_!! :) _

XXXXX

  
  


[Email from Ranger to Paladin]

Mike! I finally got to meet Madmax! She was not the bitch everyone makes her out to be. She’s cute close up… and her hair! I’m in love Mike. Seriously, you know Dustin and I had a crush on her for ages. Well He’s got Suzie now, so we are the last two eligible bachelors left over from the Party.

  
  


[Reply email from Paladin to Ranger]

:) As soon as I find the girl from the bus we can double date. Glad you have the last piece of your life puzzle!

  
  


XXXXX

  
  


_ I’m having a hard time concentrating on work. I NEED to concentrate because I just signed an NDA for some assembly optimizing work from a… oh, I can’t even tell you that. _

_ They literally sent me 11 lines of assembly. It’s not poorly written or anything, but probably cranked out by some kind of IDE or commercial assembler. I’ll need to profile it, find out where the slow down is (nanoseconds, but it all counts) and make it smaller. It’s what I do and I get paid good money for it. Just having a hard time concentrating. _

_ I can’t stop thinking about her. _

_ Yeah, that’s right. The girl with the prettiest eyes in the known universe. _

_ I think I just might be your soulmate. If you are reading this. Crossed my fingers on that one. _

_ It certainly felt like your soulmate…  _

_ But I lost it when I came back to Hawkins. _

  
  


XXXXX

  
  


[Text from Ranger to Madmax]

Running a little late. Meet u in the food court at the mall?

  
  


[Text from Madmax to Ranger]

Can’t. They r shutting down the mall. Don't know y. I can pick u up at work, or we can cancel?

  
  


[Text from Ranger to Madmax]

I don’t want to cancel :( pick me up will figure something out.

[Text from Madmax to Ranger]

Done! Be there in a few.

  
  


XXXXX

All my bravado with swearing, and humblebragging about my tech… and I’m sitting here crying.

I don’t know what to do. I love someone who’s name I don’t know. He doesn’t know me. But I think we  **BOTH** know we are soulmates.

This gave me an idea for a program. I’m not sure it will help me at all, but I know I’ll be able to sell it to the government or an alphabet company.

Soulmate: once we are together I’ll be yours forever.

I promise.

Eleven loves you.


	4. Shy Girl

_ Well. That lasted a long time. Sorry Dad. But. Fuck that noise. It’s not me online. _

_ Sorry soulmate. You’ll just have to read this. I need to protect myself. You’ll understand. I know you will. _

_ So the code I’ve been writing is shit. Ok, not shit, but someone somebody who apparently is better at me than writing code (and believe me, I question the the fuck out of that) has been assigned to “fix” my code. Can you fucking believe that? _

_ Whoever it is better be a fucking genius. That’s all I’m saying. _

_ They want me to go meet this genius. I was told we both signed the same NDA so we can talk freely about the code. _

_ I was moving back to my home town anyway. And by a really fuckin’ weird coincidence this programmer is going to be there the same time I am. _

_ I can’t wait to see the expression on his fuckin’ face when he see’s I’m a girl, and then tries to go all superior on me.  _

_ Can’t fucking wait. :) _

  
  
  


XXXXX

[textl from Eleven to Madmax]

On my way back home. Please don’t try to set me up with a blind date. You know how I feel about those. Unless it’s my soulmate from the bus I’m not interested.

[text from Madmax to Eleven]

I know better than to do that. But you CAN me my boyfriend. Want to meet us at The Hideaway? I’ll try not to make you feel like a third wheel.

XXXXX

  
  


[email from Ranger to Paladin]

Ok, I just had a bit of a weird thing happen. I had my first date with Max. No, that’s not the weird part. She invited her best friend for an hour or so, but said she wouldn’t be around the whole time. Nothing worse than a third wheel on your first date.

Anyway, I was ok with it. So… the hair.

Max had hers all volumey, and maybe had a touch of makeup on. She’s beautiful, I’m trying really hard not to be a mouthbreather around her.

Her friend’s hair was super short. Like it had been buzzed in the last few weeks or something. She was cute, you would like her. I know I know, if she’s not the girl on the bus you aren’t interested.

She was very shy. Mike, I mean, she barely looked at me. She was polite and all but, small voice, pretty eyes, and that really short hair.

That’s not the weird part. Her name is Eleven.

I told her she doesn’t have to be that polite around us, I said, “I mean look at Max, she’s not shy at all… or polite. You’re the kind of girl my best friend likes.”

Max just gave me a glare, but then smiled. “You get away with that one because you are my boyfriend... We are NOT setting her up with one of your friends. And El is only shy in person, you should read her blog.“

And then, Max pulls out her cell phone, and taps away at it, hands it over to me and says “read this”

That shy girl has a foul mouth on her. She didn’t say boo or two words to me while we were all sitting at the table. She’s loud and outspoken online though. I wouldn’t want to get into a war of words with her.

I’m reading her blog and I look up to her, and say, “YOU’RE the girl on the bus.”

She went all pale and I thought she was going to pass out. I think Hawkins had an earthquake or something at the same time. Bottles and glasses were rattling at the bar, lights flickered on and off.

She looked at me. Her eyes were intense. Beautiful, but intense. “How do you know that?”

I told her my best friend Mike, has been pining for some girl on a bus since he got back to Hawkins, I pulled up your blog and passed the phone to her.

She cried.

I swear there were more tears than water over Angel Falls. They were streaming down her face.

Max looked at me, “You know the guy on the bus she’s been moping about?”

“Yeah, he works out of his mom’s basement.”

Max rolled her eyes, but I told them why you lived there. The girl cried even harder.

She asked me in a voice that made me just want to hug her. Take care of her. It was very weird with your new girlfriend sitting right across the table from you. But she asked if she could meet you.

So, long story even longer, I know you have a business meeting some time today, but I figured you’d want take time to meet her?

If not, let me know, we are sitting here trying to comfort her.

Sending you a text for you to read this email.

  
  


XXXXX

  
  


[text from Ranger to Paladin]

URGENT. READ YOUR EMAIL

[text from Paladin to Ranger]

YES, let me postpone the peer review meeting I have with the NDA contract.

  
  
  


XXXXX

  
  


[incoming text - flagged as URGENT]

Can we postpone? Urgent personal matter came up. I REALLY need to postpone.

[outgoing text - flagged as URGENT]

Same thing happened to me. I'll send you and updated calendar event when I can.

  
  


[text from Ranger to Madmax]

Ok, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier for my friend. And yours who I don’t even know. When I sent Mike that text and he said he’d have to let his contract person know, and THEN El gets that text seconds after… who knew they’d be the same person.

[text from Madmax to Ranger]

I know, right? I hope your friend isn’t an asshole. El deserves better than that. You already know she’s a nice girl, she needs an equally nice guy.

[test from Ranger to Madmax]

I’ve always thought that about Mike, he deserves a nice girl AND smart.

  
  


XXXXX

  
  


_ I had to make this entry before it actually happens. _

_ What a wasteoid I am. I can’t stop crying. I’m so nervous I’m sweating buckets. I have to calm down, take a shower. _

_ I was supposed to have that NDA type meeting today, but I texted them and told them I had to postpone it. No way I can take a chance that this girl… might be the one from the bus… _

_ If it’s her… If it’s her… _

_ If it’s her, I’ll know right away, that  _ feeling _ will be there. I’ll tell her I love her right away. If it’s her  _ she _ will know anyway. _

_ I get the feeling my whole life is about to turned upside down. _

_ I can’t wait. _

_ I’m almost sick to my stomach I’m so nervous. What if she doesn’t like the fact that I’m over the top nerdy? Shit. Or even my looks for that matter. I mean, she’s pretty, she could have any guy she wanted. My choices are… let’s call them limited. I’ve known that for a long time. I had to come to grips with it the first time that asshole Troy called me frogface. _

_ There’s a knock on the door. I am praying to the gods of my ancestors that it’s her… _

The girl on the bus.


	5. Finding Each Other

_ Eleven. _

_ That’s her name. _

_ My heart is at peace right now. _

_ I’m not one of those guys who brags about everything he’s done with a girl. Guys like that are assholes, but I want to blog about our first meeting. _

_ Sorry El, I will NOT be blogging about our relationship, but I need to get this out there because I want others to know that when you find that someone. You will KNOW. _

_ When I heard the knock on the door I thought my legs would give out. I was nervous and desperate and most of all, terrified. I was a mess. I was sure I was going to pass out. _

_ It took me eons to walk to the door, and when I opened it… time stopped. _

_ I will remember that moment forever. _

_ She stood there in a blue floral print dress that went to her knees, a bag over her shoulder, a suitcase beside her. Her head was lowered a bit but she looked up at me and smiled through her eyelashes. _

_ OMG. She wasn’t just pretty. She was… REALLY pretty. _

_ I could see her starting to sway. I went over to her quickly and put my hands on her hips to steady her. I put my forehead against hers. Her arms went around my neck. _

_ I swear at the EXACT same time we both said, “You found me.” _

_ I’d like to say that I didn’t start crying. My life has been good, I haven’t had a lot of reasons to cry, not since I was 10 or 12 anyway. The emotion I felt can’t really be described in words. If you’ve ever been in love with someone, the first time you realized it… well… THAT’S the way I felt. Giddy. Happy. Relieved. Wanted. Loved. All that and a thousand more synonyms. _

_ I didn’t even say “Hi”, or “I Love you.” It wasn’t enough, but I was ok with what I did mumble through. _

_ “My heart is yours Eleven… if you want it.” _

_ I heard a big sigh. “I do… and I will never let it go, I will never let  _ you _ go. I will always be true, I promise. You didn’t know it, but you’ve  _ always _ had my heart.. I am totally yours Mike. Totally.” _

_ “For fuck’s sake Mike, bring your girlfriend in out of the rain.” _

_ I cleared my throat and said to El, “Um, Eleven? I’d like you to meet my potty mouth little sister Holly. She’s 15 but has the mouth of a 40 year old trucker. _

_ I moved aside to let El in first. _

_ “Mrs. Ives?” _

_ My sister was looking at El and the shock on my face must have been really obvious. _

_ “Mrs.?” I managed to croak out. I’ll admit my heart sank. Not only did my sister already know who she was, but she knew her as a  _ Mrs.

_ I got a reassuring smile from El. “It’s an alias Mike… I use it so I’m not… bothered in class.” _

_ “Class?” _

_ “Mrs. Ives is my programming teacher. At Hawkins High.” _

_ It was El’s turn to look shocked. “YOU are THAT Mike Wheeler?” _

_ “Uh….” My response was brilliant. _

_ “Uh, am I famous?” _

_ Here is where the English language fails. El smiled at me. Those are four simple words. But El’s smile conveyed love, admiration (however undeserved), and love. Did I mention that already? I hadn’t even mentioned that I loved her yet. I know I wrote that in an earlier blog, but my heart and mind were leap frogging each other. _

_ “You wrote  _ ‘Zinc’ AND you released the code… back when nobody was doing that.”

“What’s so special about that program?” My sister said.

_ El talked to her like a teacher would explain to a student. “Zinc was a TSR program written in C.” _

_ “In C?” Holly said. _

_ “In C. Remember I had you write TSR’s in assembly, which is relatively easy to do, but your brother wrote an entire TSR editor in C. At the time I didn’t think it could be done. I have ALWAYS wanted to meet the programmer who wrote that. But he wrote other things too. He wrote one of the first blogging apps I’ve ever used, TKBlog. He wrote it in TCL/Tk which nobody uses. He wrote Galactic Empire Builder, which was a Palmpilot port of a Commodore 64 game originally written in BASIC. ” _

_ At that point El laughed. “Your brother is kind of my programming hero.” _

_ Holly rolled her eyes. “I’m outta here, you guys can snog all night… or whatever.” _

_ She left El and I standing there looking at each other. _

_ At first we didn’t have anything to say to each other. I think we were both just in the moment. _

_ I told her that I already blogged that the first thing I would say to her was ‘ _ I love you’.  _ But it seemed completely inadequate now. _

_ “Did you feel it? On the bus?” She said. _

_ “Yeah…” _

_ “That’s not love Mike.” She had a very shy demeanor which was throwing me off a little bit. You wouldn’t expect a teacher to be anything but a type A. _

_ “It’s not?” I was confused… and feeling a little unsure of myself. _

_ “No. We are soulmates. That’s what I’m feeling.” I nodded. That was the last thing she said to me for a few minutes. I thought I’d said something wrong. Or didn’t say enough. I didn’t know. I sort of ran off at the mouth. _

_ “Yeah. Soulmate. I think that’s the word I’ve been looking for. Fair warning Eleven… uh… can I call you El? For short?” _

_ She smiled. It would be ok. _

_ “Obviously. I’ve never had a soulmate. Um. I’ve never had a girlfriend… so I’ve never kissed a girl before.” _

_ At that she came over to me. And we kissed. Simple kiss. No tonsil hockey. I’m sure that would come later :) _

_ Is it cliche to say that her lips were soft? Well, they were. I just hope she enjoyed it as much as I did. _

_ It was my first kiss. Yup. I’m 25 years old, and that was the first time I had ever kissed a girl. I don’t feel bad though. As a matter of fact I was in very good company. I told her it was my first kiss, she blushed and her nod let me know it was hers too. _

_ I have always wanted a pretty, shy girl for a girlfriend.  _

_ I mean she was very shy. She kept her eyes down a lot of the time. She was maybe even a little hunched over as if she was trying to be… I don’t know…  _ NOT noticed. Like she didn’t know how pretty she was.

I bought her suitcase inside and sat it just inside the door. She looked at it briefly and then at me.

“You are staying with me tonight.”

She blushed and smiled, and nodded.

“Let’s get this work contract talk out of the way first, ok?”

“I complained about someone fixing my code.” She said not quite looking at me. “I was coming over here to rip you a new one.”

Yeah. She said that. This really shy girl. Obviously she’s proud and defensive of her coding skills.

“Fixing? No… I’m not really fixing your code, you are writing it in C++ right?”

“You are asking like you weren’t quite sure? How can you fix my code if you don’t even know the language?”

“I recognize the assembly output of a commercial compiler. Your code is fine, it’s the output of the compiler… I uh,  _ hand optimize  _ it, it’s not the same thing as fixing it. Compilers even with optimization switches for size and speed are not as good as hand optimization. Computers are plenty fast enough nowadays so, I’m guessing they are embedding this into small electronics. Um… I hate to break it to you but you know the code is being weaponized don’t you?”

She nodded again. “I can’t build in a back door, it’s too obvious in a mid level language.”

I tried to give her a sly smile, “But not so obvious in hand optimized assembly.”

“You are playing a dangerous game Mike.”

“I told them I was doing it. They approved, it was on their radar for a feature upgrade. I gave them the hash key pairs. They just don’t know there are two sets of them. Just in case.”

“Ok.”

“Are we good? More importantly. Are we done with shop talk?”

Another smile and nod.

I was not expecting her reaction to the sound of sirens outside. She looked worried and scared, maybe a little paranoid.

I was definitely not expecting her to cringe at the sound of a large crack of lightning.

“You ok?”

She shook her head. He eyes very wide… and pretty.

“It’s ok. We are safe in here.”

I showed her around my little basement apartment. I explained to her why I lived in my mom’s basement and that got a big smile from her. She understood.

When we go to the area I have closed off with heavy drapes, almost like an adult version of a blanket fort. She frowned and looked a little disappointed. She looked up the basement stairs as if wondering if the room she would be staying in was up there.

“I know what you’re thinking. Yes, we are sleeping beside each other tonight. The bed is big enough for that. We can go shopping for a bigger one tomorrow if you want. And I’m beat, we can fall asleep in each other’s arms...”

A bigger smile and a nod this time. “Do you somewhere I can change for bed?”

I pointed to the bathroom.

I’m not quite sure what I thought she would wear for night clothes, I had kind of an idea. It wasn’t what she eventually came out wearing though. Long johns, wool socks, and a sweatshirt.

She looked at me, turning red, and said, “I get cold at night. Always been that way.”

I’d like to think I’m not a sexist guy. I don’t wolf whistle at girls, I don’t say nasty things about them behind their backs to my friends. None of that.

Ok, so after just typing that, I have to say she had the nicest bum I’ve seen, nice hips… um… I couldn’t see them very well, but I did catch the swell of her breasts. 

And here comes the main reason I don’t ogle girls.

She caught me.

There’s a bright red throw pillow sitting on the sofa I have down there, but I’m sure my face was a lot redder than that.

“I wish I had more of them.” She looked down at them.

“More of what? I was being a wasteoid.

“Boobs.”

“Uh, you have nothing to worry about. At all.”

I didn’t realize boob size was that big a deal for girls. I blame that on society. I don’t particularly care. No way I’d tell her that though, especially if she was already feeling self-conscious about her body.

I changed the subject.

“Oh, hey, my friend Lucas said you have a blog. Address off mine is paladin.zone, what’s yours?”

Again that panicked look. Her eyes went wide and instead of the nod, it was a quick shake of the head.

Looking down she said, “I’ll tell you if you really want to know. I don’t want to keep any secrets from you. But Mike... I have some big secrets, and I need to tell you all of them. But my blog…”

She hesitated. I asked, “Too personal… or private?”

“No, It’s not that… I’m… different online. It’s one of the ways I protect myself. I… I’d prefer you didn’t read it.”

“If you don’t want me to read it El. I won’t. Simple as that.”

“Really?”

“Really, El. You can continue to write it if you want, but I won’t read it. I promise.”

“You aren’t tempted? Not even a little curious.”

I laughed. “Yup, both. But you asked me not to read it. I won’t. “

“Mike. I’m going to know if you have. Don’t make that promise if you can’t keep it. Don’t make me ANY promise if you can’t keep it.”

“A promise is something you can’t break.”

Nod.

“Not only will I keep that promise, but ALL the promises I make to you. Besides, I know you have to the skills to track me.” I chuckled.

She wasn’t laughing.

“Yes, but that’s not how I will know. I will see it on your face.”

We looked into each other’s eyes.

“El. I  _ promise.” _

That got me a pretty smile. “Let’s get some sleep. It’s been an emotional day for both of us.”

She crawled into the bed with me and snuggled up close.

“It’s ok to cry Mike… I can’t help it either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> El's blog will be much different :)


	6. NOT alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extreme apologies for El's blog swearing.

_ What’s up, bitches? _

_ I need to say this to every girl out there. Maybe even some guys, but definitely every girl. _

_ You’ve probably heard the phrase and rolled your eyes at it. “There’s someone for everyone” _

_ Let me tell you: When someone fucking tells you that and you are already feeling lonely and useless you just want to punch them in the fucking face. _

_ I mean, you  _ hope _ they are right, but you have no faith in humanity that it will actually happen for you. _

_ Now that I’ve reminded you of this and you’ve just started to feel shitty for the whole day: They are right. There IS someone out there for everyone. _

_ And let me also tell you this: _

_ It is a very humbling experience to meet your soulmate.  _

_ To know that person will love you unconditionally, would die for you in fact. Humility doesn’t even cover it. To meet that person you  _ know _ you have loved your entire life… including all your past lives. Even if you haven’t met them yet. Yes I’m a believer. If that bothers you, well yup, you guess it: Go fuck yourself sideways. Hard. _

_ Let me tell you about my day yesterday. _

_ I took a bus back to my hometown. I don’t have a lot of good memories there, so I’ve taken to calling it Shitkins, or Cuntkins (sorry dad :( ) sometimes Hawkaloogey. I’d say that nothing ever happens there but plenty did. People are in prison because of some of it. (Hi, Dr. Brenner, you fuckhole, you reading this online? Did Bubba let you use some of the internet after you blew him? I hope you’re bleeding from the asshole right now after they passed you around. You fukkin’ fuck. _

_ A lot of you might be thinking I’m too harsh. Nobody deserves that. _

_ That’s because you are fucking clueless. _

_ Sorry everyone. I have baggage with a lot of stinky shit in it. Example: the above mentioned fucktard physically and emotionally abused me for the first 12 years of my life. Made me wear a hospital gown for fuck’s sake. No panties either. I’ve pissed on the floor in a corner of a dark, cold room more times than I care to remember. I thought it was fucking normal, until my dad told me otherwise. _

_ So no. I don’t really give a fuck how many times is ass or face is raped on a daily basis. Hopefully for a good 12 years. _

_ Anyyyyyways, I took a bus to my shithole hometown. _

_ I met my friend Max, I’ve mentioned her before, at a bar in town. She introduced me to her boyfriend. I have to laugh. She has him wrapped around her little finger. He’s gaga over her. He’s a really nice guy though, and I think the two of them will be happier together. _

_ The conversation got very surreal when my shyness came up. _

_ Shyness? Yes. Fuck off. _

_ It turns out his best friend IS THE GUY ON THE BUS. I shit you not.  _

_ I started to cry when I read his blog. Lucas (that’s Max’s boyfriend) tried to comfort me. I got the distinct feeling he wanted to hug me, to keep me safe. Like I said. It was surreal. _

_ But not only that. Apparently HE is the person who was “fixing” my code. I had mixed feelings about wanting to rip him a new asshole… or tonguing it. Yes, mouthbreathers. That was for you. _

_ Max drove us to his place. I thought I’d be sick. If this was him… if this was really him. I hope to fuck he never read my blog. I tend not leave a very good fucking impression. See what I mean? :) _

_ When they dropped me off it was starting to rain. It also looked like we’d be getting another thunderstorm. I hate those with a passion. I just fucking hate them. _

_ I knocked on the door and when it opened… _

_ Oh fuck. Oh fuck. It was HIM! I had that same feeling I had on the bus. No not the wet between my thighs, you mouthbreathers, the OTHER one.  _

_ The feeling you get girls, when you meet your soulmate. _

_ The best part is that I know he felt it too. I could see his knees shake and he had to hold himself steady on the door. I was sure I was going to faint. _

_ He came over and put his hands on my hips to keep me from falling over. I admit. I got all tingly. He put his forehead against mine, and I put my arms around his neck. _

_ I fucking swear at the EXACT same time we both said, “You found me.” _

_ Now I know that some of you are not going to believe this… but he gave his heart to me. _

_ He said some very sweet things, and maybe from anybody else, they would have been a a bad pick up line. I knew they weren’t… because... _

_ Because... HE GAVE HIS HEART TO ME. _

_ Girls. You have to trust me on this one. You will know when it happens. I promise. Just hold on to that ok? Ignore all my fucking swearing and just believe me ok? _

_ His little sister told him to stop fucking around and let me in. When she called me by my teacher’s alias, I knew exactly who he was. _

_ I won’t go all techie on you. That’s not why you read this blog. Let me just say it was all very surreal. Maybe that’s what happens when you are finally in your soulmates presence. IDK. _

_ I won’t get into the whole name thing. It’s fucking boring to me now. I don’t really like my real name. But I LOVE my last name (love you dad ;) _

_ I’ve been going by the name of “Eleven” for so long, it’s just natural. _

_ But Mike. Big sigh. His name is Mike. He has the deepest, darkest, gentlest eyes I’ve ever fucking seen… and he gave his heart to me. _

_ [ok, this is later. I broke down crying] _

_ He asked me if he could call me “El” for short. I was floored. I love that nickname. He gave that to me yesterday too. _

_ I love him. _

_ We kissed. No. He did NOT try to stick his tongue down my throat. It was a sweet kiss. _

_ Girls, (I know I'm saying girls a lot, but this goes for guys too) neither one of you have to explore the other’s throathole for a good kiss. A simple “I love you kiss” is very satisfying. It will let him know you love him. You will FEEL his love, all his promises in his kiss. _

_ Trust me on this one. Ok? _

_ Hmm, re read what I just wrote. I’m not really coming across as the bitchy cunt I wanted to. Oh well, that could be love. :) _

_ I didn’t talk much. Most of the speech in my life has been one word answers to questions posed to me. I never had a good vocabulary. Not until my dad taught me. I’m almost ashamed to be NOT using it and just fucking swearing in a blog. LOL. _

_ We dealt with the work stuff. _

_ Fuck. He’s smart. I mean, he’s really, REALLY fucking smart. I know guys tend to get technology more than us girls do, and I’ve tried very hard to turn that stereotype around. I taught myself coding in a very disciplined manner. I’m NOT stupid. I mean I’m shy and may come across as stupid, but I’m not. _

_ I was going to shit all over the person who was supposed to be “fixing” my code. He told me there was nothing wrong with it. He gave insights as to what was going on. _

_ Without knowing it, what he really did was let me know not to trust the fucking government or any of the alphabet agencies working in “our best interests.” _

_ Noted Mike. Got it. I think I may have been a little too fucking naive there. _

_ Mike didn’t have a king size bed. Only a double. It’s enough for two people who love each other to snuggle. That was good enough for me. Although, I was a little worried for a minute or so. _

_ So we are in bed, spooning, and he puts his hand on my hip. _

_ Ok let’s get this shit out of the way: _

_ [[ fucktard mouthbreather section ]] _

_ You want to know if we had steamy, juicy, sticky sex? If we went down on each other? How many times did he make me come. Did I swallow? All that fucking shit? _

_ I wanted to ride him till we were both delirious. But… instead I was riding the cotton pony. So. fuck off you tardhole fucktard.  _

_ Fuck I hate you assholes. You clearly aren’t getting enough porn between applying your acne medication. And if you are older than that. Well, fuck, get laid more or some shit. _

_ Assholes. No fucking way in the world I’d betray his confidence like that. You want to read internet porn? Look elsewhere asshole. _

_ Oh… I’m sorry did you not jizz on the keyboard? Did your boner just shrivel away? _

_ It’s because you are a fucktard. _

_ [[/fucktard mouthbreather section over.]] _

_ I may have mentioned in an early blog that I have low tolerance for stupid asshole people. If I forgot. Well, I have low tolerance for assholes. Especially ignorant assholes. _

_ I REALLY hope to fuck he doesn’t read this. I asked him not to, and he actually promised. _

_ But, sorry Mike... you’re a guy. I know you promised… but… you’re a guy. _

_ So this is my last blog. _

_ It’s not Eleven Alone. Not anymore. _

_ I’m NOT alone. _

_ I am NOT alone.  _

_ You aren’t either Mike. Eleven loves you. _


	7. IRL

_ I have never felt this safe. This  _ loved _ before. I’m curled up in bed with my soulmate. We haven’t even kissed again yet. That’s how comfortable I feel. We will have forever to kiss. Still, I want a deeper kiss… not yet though, cause I know where that’s going to lead. _

No sooner did El have that thought, when she felt a hand on her hip.

“No.”

_ Hmm, I might have said that a little harsher than I intended. But we can’t have sex tonight… well, I can’t. _

She knew for sure that it was too harsh, Mike’s hand suddenly pulled away, and then he pulled himself away and lay on his back. She felt the cold basement night air at her back now that he wasn’t close behind her.

“Um, sorry.”

El cringed.  _ He thinks I’m mad at him. _

She felt Mike get out of bed.  _ Where’s he going?... he’s mad at me. _

El heard the clacking of a loud keyboard. She smiled to herself briefly.  _ He’s using MX-cherry blue keys. I’d know that sound anywhere. It’s what I use too. _

At first she thought Mike was checking his email, but he was doing a lot of typing. I _ s he working? Writing on his blog? Or… or is he reading my  _ blog?  _ I hope not. He promised not to! _

El checked her watch thinking it had only been a few minutes since he’d gotten out of bed. It had been over an hour.

_ He’s not coming back. I don’t know what to do! I have to talk to him. _

  
  


XXXXX

  
  


Mike felt her presence behind him while he sat at the keyboard.

“Mike?” Her voice was timid. She sounded completely unsure of what to say.

“You ok Eleven?”

“No.” It was as different sounding  _ no _ this time.

“What’s wrong?”

“You got out of bed. It doesn’t look like you are coming back to it either. Will you tell me why?”

Mike turned around to look at her. The tears rolling down her cheeks made him feel like shit.

“I was moving in to snuggle a little closer, and you said  _ ‘no’ _ . You are my first girlfriend El, I wasn’t lying when I said that. That  _ no _ sounded like ‘we are done snuggling’ and it’s kind of a small bed, so not a lot of room for us to stretch out. I figured I’d sleep on the couch and we’d get a new bed as soon as the mall opened.”

“You just wanted to snuggle? Closer?”

“Yeah, what did you th… oh… uh, I don’t want to have sex the first time in my Mom’s basement.”

Mike’s face burned, but El giggled.

XXXXX

  
  
  


_ He just wanted to snuggle closer! _ The realization that she’d read his actions all wrong made her forget to ask him if he was reading her blog.

They lay back in bed facing each other. 

“Mike I’m sorry I barked at you.”

“Not a problem El, I didn’t-”

“Let me finish.”

“When a girl gets a certain age changes happen to her body, monthly messy biology is the norm for us for a long time.”

She watched his face turn red again.

He was about to say something, but she put her finger across his lips, and then quickly replaced it with a kiss.

“I don’t feel very sexy when I’m in my cycle. You understand?”

El was sure that Mike’s face was close to an exploding purple. But he nodded.

_ He’s really embarrassed. _

  
  
  


XXXXX

  
  


“Mike! Mom’s home.”

Mike and El were sitting on the edge of the bed, kissing. They had been kissing for the last hour. They would stop, look into each other’s eyes, give off a big sigh and then start kissing again.

“Uh, El, do me a favour and stay down here? Mom isn’t very good with new people in the house”

El look confused but nodded.

  
  


XXXXX

“Hi Mom, how did the doctor’s appointment go.”

“You know, Mike, I might as well shove those pills up my ass for all the good they do.”

_ Ugh, so not well at all, she still has no social filter. _

“Oh! Who’s that Mike.”

Mike turned to see that El and quietly come up beside him.

_ Shit. _

“Um, Mom, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend, Eleven.”

“Uneven! What a pretty name. Has he fucked you yet?” She covered her mouth immediately. She knew what she had just blurted out.

“I'm so sorry Elevator… I have a… condition.”

Mike gave Holly a look that said “ _ Deal with this.” _

El put her hand to her mouth, her eyes watering and left quickly for the basement.

Mike held back the urge to yell at his mom but he knew she couldn’t help it.

Holly was busy writing in a notebook. Between them they called it the “F” book, but the doctors told them to keep track of her… social inconsistencies, so they did.

Mike went to see if El was ok.

  
  


XXXXX

  
  


“El… you really shouldn’t have gone upstairs… we’ve tried to get help, but every form you apply for has a  _ condition _ box you have to feel out. Doctor’s can’t tell us what it is, so we can’t fill out the forms, so no professional help. Sorry you had to hear that. She didn’t mean it. She has a lot of other symptoms.”

“I know Mike. I had the same thing. I was much younger, but I had the same thing.”

“Uh…”

“I did something I didn’t ask your  _ ok _ for. I called my doctor. He has the… well… cure for it I guess.”

“What you saw was just one symptom… there a few others.”

“I know Mike. Dr. Owens can help.”

  
  
XXXXX

  
  


Sam Owens had finished with the injection.

“How long does it take?” Holly asked.

“Blood cycles through the body about every minute.” He looked at his watch.

“...and… done.”

“She was exposed to something in the lab, if she didn’t work there, then she came in contact with someone who did.”

“That was probably Ted… my husband… he… left us.”

“I see. Well, you won’t be experiencing those problems any more.”

  
  


XXXXX

“I’m guessing you have some very interesting secrets.” Mike said to El.

He gestured upstairs. “That’s why I was living in my mom’s basement.”

“Max’s new boyfriend Lucas told me. Even if you hadn’t been the guy on the bus, I would have come by with Dr. Owens.”

“So, we have the problem of all new couples now.”

“We do?”

“Yeah… we have no private place to… to…”

“Screw?” El said, but her face turned red right after.

Mike laughed. “I was going to say  _ be intimate _ . But that works.”

“I have a place. I need to take you to my dad first, I’ve been talking about you online enough, he wanted to meet you if we ever found each other.. He can drive us there too for that matter.”

“We have met, he did some initial investigation when my dad disappeared.”

“He hasn’t met you as my boyfriend.” El winked.

“Yeah, that’s different.” Hopper was an honest cop, but he was rough around the edges. Mike had no idea how he would react to El being his girlfriend.

XXXXX

  
  


Hopper looked between the two, he glanced briefly at their entwined fingers.

“Hi Mike, I see you’ve met my daughter… wait! El,  _ this _ is the bus guy?”

El smiled. “He is.”

“Um, Mike, can you give me a minute with El?

“Dad, anything you can say in front of me you can say in front of Mike.”

“Sorry, El, I don’t want to embarrass him.”

“It’s Ok, El, uh, chief, is there a private phone I can use? I want to check in with Holly.”

“Powell’s office. He’s off today. Close the door.”

  
  


XXXXX

  
  


“Ok, dad. What’s up?”

_ I think he’s going to cry! _

Hopper ran his forearm across his eyes.

“I am so happy for both of you… I didn’t want Mike to see… me crying.”

El immediately went over to hug his middle.

“I love you, dad.”

“I love you too kid… um, Mike’s been living with his mom’s condition for a little over ten years. I think it’s the same thing you had. Didn’t realize that till that last time I saw her. I need to ask Owens if he can look at her.”

“Already done. She’d had the same injection. I think she’s cured.”

She saw her dad breathe in a huge sigh of relief.

“He was so dedicated. I never saw him with a girlfriend, very rarely even outside of the house. He’s still living in his mom’s basement, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he will have more freedom now… but El. He was really badly bullied as kid. I’m not saying he’s had it as bad as you did. I don’t think anybody has….”

El watched her dad stop and breathe again, trying to contain his emotions.

“At the quarry, when Mike was twelve or thirteen, some asshole kid had a knife to his throat. I had to shoot him in the leg. Kid had gone psycho or something.”

“You shot Mike!”

“No, no, Troy Walsh. Remember him? He’s the kid with the limp that assaulted you.”

“I remember.”

“I didn’t see Mike for months after that. His sister Holly said he was terrified of stepping out of the house.”

“Poor Mike.”

“All I’m saying El… you too are going to be good for each other… uh, I don’t think he’s quite ready for your online personality.”

“Mike promised never to read it.”

Hopper raised an eyebrow, “well, don’t hold him to that.”

“I won’t… but I know he won’t break a promise to me. I  _ know  _ that, dad.“

Hopper looked at the daughter he loved beyond his own life.

“I believe that. I believe that of Mike. I’m a cop El. We have a certain amount of intuition. Makes us good at what we do.

“So… you’ll drive us out to the cabin? Mike needs…  _ we _ need some alone time.” El blushed when asked.

“Yes. You have to tell him El. He deserves to know about you.”

“I’ll tell him while we walk.”

“Ok. Don’t forget about the tripwire.”

El nodded.

  
  


XXXXX

“I’ll send you a message when we get inside.” El told her dad. She and Mike started to walk.

“Dad told me about you.”

“You already know about me, El.”

“I didn’t know the bullying part.”

“Oh, that.” Mike looked down. “I think your dad saved my life. Was a long time ago.”

“I need to tell you about me.”

_ I hope I’m not making a big mistake. _

El, told Mike about the lab. About all the abuses she suffered. He hung his head low as he listened. He didn’t once interrupt her with questions or crying.

It wasn’t until she got to the part about finally showing herself to her dad on a cold autumn day, snow on the ground, that he burst out crying.

She did the only thing that could be done for that kind of crying. She hugged him. Tightly. She cooed softly in his ear that it was already.

She did that for a long time... until he his breathing returned to normal

  
  
  


XXXXX

  
  


He was quiet for the rest of the walk.

“Look at that tree.”

Mike did.

“See that about six inches from the roots?”

Mike saw the mouse trap… “Uh, is that a tripwire… and a bullet? That would warn anybody who… who…”

Mike broke down crying again.

And El hugged him again. She guided him over the wire.

“I will never hurt you Eleven. Never cheat on you… I p-promise.” Mike gave a short laugh.

“If I had a ri… oh, wait I do.”

She watched Mike undo the top button of his shirt and reach for something around his neck.

It was a ring.

He got down on one knee in the wet leaves

_ If he’s going to do what I think he’s going to do, I may cry forever. _

“You said you were mine, you are my soulmate… but… if you would be my wife… I… I…”

El got down on both knees so that they were looking eye to eye.

“Yes Mike.” She hugged him again. Just as tightly.

“My grandmother gave this to me, when I was twelve or thirteen. She told me to wear it around my neck, always. She said that way I would always have it, and I would know the exact time when to use it.”

“This is it,” Mike said through his tears. He slipped it on her finger.

“I love you, girl on the bus.”

“I love you, guy on the bus.”


End file.
